12 April 2011

Singularity Signposts – Running out of processing matter/energy?

George Rebane

There was an interesting exchange on Ray Kurzweil's website between Kurzweil and a reader with a "disturbing thought" about post-Sinularity trans-humans some day running out of 'stuff' on which to store their ever-expanding knowledge base and on which to do the ever more expansive 'thinking' that presumably we will then be able to do (here).

The reader was concerned about a future gargantuan conflict as such beings competed for the limited matter/energy in the universe. Their conversation wound up contemplating either our evolution into God(s), or the already achieved existence of God through such a process.

Neither participant seemed to realize that the likelihood of all such scenarios is low because they depend on Homo Sapiens being the only sentient and sapient species in this universe. Most of us studied in such conversations cannot conceive of the case in which we find ourselves alone. And if we are not alone, then the probability that anything of such post-Singularity nature has already happened is close to unity - since if we are not alone, then we are also not in a privileged point in time, i.e. we are not the species in the forefront of any such development or evolution.

It seems then that this argument fortifies the notion that, relative to Homo Sapiens, God already exists. And it also then provides credence to the notion held by many leading scientists today that we may live – and all of our perceived existence is – in a running program.

I'll have more to say about this at a later time. But in the interval, such reasoning threads should maximally disrupt the belief systems of calcified secular humanists – e.g. those who blindly insist that intelligent design has no provenance of its own and is merely a code word for creationism.

No problem per se with turbans or Sikh solidarity - learned about Sikhs from a devout Sikh friend and colleague - but would like to know why its show requires the wearing of garb which the average person (correctly in the Bayesian sense) mistakes for Muslim garb. I have no desire to add to the support or perception of unassimilated Muslim immigration. And given my selective and qualified use of 'raghead' in these pages, my wearing of a turban would well be seen as a gratuitous attempt at half-hearted redemption in the eyes my leftwing detractors. The Sikh solidarity message would be lost.

But I would like to march with American Muslims, wearing American garb, in a show of solidarity with the assimilated part of Islam that also abhors what the ragheads are doing in the name of their faith. Let's find one of these kinds of gatherings.

DavidK - I'm not sure I understand what you seem to be protesting in the notion of the spread of post-Singularity intelligence (not necessarily started by us), and the plausability of its established existence.

A fun thought experiment is to convert the age of the universe (assume 13.7 billion yrs) into seconds and divide by the assumed number of stars to get a figure for the rate of ongoing creation. Seems that new stars have been popping into existence at a rate on about 800 per second for all those eons. Amazing; how we gonna run out of raw materials?

It’s not so much the concept, as the people.
I have been accused of being arrogant on more than one occasion, so, am well aware of the differing levels of perception of events. Scale seems to be the problem here.

The scale of things does seem daunting when considered from where and when we are now. I believe the point being promoted is that this universe has an unimaginably long life ahead of it during which many civilizations will enter post-Singularity. If they keep 'growing' in the sense that we understand, then there will be plenty of time to run out of storage/processing substrates.

However, the very notion of Singularity says that the other side is unknowable to stupid critters like we are. So, the trans-humans may come to exist and serve other objectives and dwell in manifolds (other dimensions) beyond our ken.

I have described this as 'blinking out', and posit that it occurs for most civilizations within, say, two hundred earth years of starting to transmit in the EM spectrum. Within that timeframe the civilization will either destroy itself (and therefore stop EM broadcasts), or go post-Singularity and quickly make itself invisible to lesser beings like ourselves.

Blinking out goes a long way to explain why SETI has not found evidence of other intelligent life, and has a low probability of finding it by the EM scanning methods to which it seems to be wedded.

We egotistical humans always assume that an "advanced" race will want to make contact so we can join up in the universal collective. I wonder if it's a good idea to broadcast that we live on a nice planet with a decent climate and lots of water.

And if their intentions were less than honorable, I doubt there would be a battle. They'd just grab a couple of us to see what makes us tick, develop a virus, spray the planet like we would spray the rose bushes for aphids. Viola! Pest eliminated and a new vacation destination for the Alpha Centaurians.

If our pre-Singularity encounter is dystopian, I fully agree with Bob. We would be vermin to be eliminated by an appropriate nano-machine that's tuned to our DNA. From an internal source, Bill Joy (from Sun Microsysts) wrote the definitive 'gray goo' essay of our pre-Singularity end.

The 'galactic speed limit' of c holds for any Hamiltonian path in a given space manifold. The local shape of such manifolds and their manipulability is a function of the technology mastered by any given (inter)galactic civilization.

We must remember, that to the same extent that those of us conversant in the language of math (and its enabled fields) can think thoughts inaccessible to those not so blessed (Sapir-Whorf), to that extent and greater can post-Singularity critters think thoughts beyond our current comprehension. That we already acknowledge this is the first little feather in our cap. Primitives do not tolerate such outlandish notions.

George, glad to see my softball pitch was hit in the manner in which it was intended. You may think that you have been clear as glass about your distinctions regarding various eastern religions, but your comment today should put the matter to rest in two succinct paragraphs.

My replies below:

> No problem per se with turbans or Sikh solidarity - learned about Sikhs
> from a devout Sikh friend and colleague - but would like to know why its
> show requires the wearing of garb which the average person (correctly in
> the Bayesian sense) mistakes for Muslim garb. I have no desire to add to
> the support or perception of unassimilated Muslim immigration.

As I thought, a "raghead" in your view is not just anyone wearing headgear, it describes a certain behavior and mindset associated with Islamist extremism, usually resulting in violence.

> And given my selective and qualified use of 'raghead' in these pages,
> my wearing of a turban would well be seen as a gratuitous attempt at
> half-hearted redemption in the eyes my leftwing detractors. The Sikh
> solidarity message would be lost.

Agreed.

> But I would like to march with American Muslims, wearing American garb,
> in a show of solidarity with the assimilated part of Islam that also
> abhors what the ragheads are doing in the name of their faith. Let's
> find one of these kinds of gatherings.

Fair enough. And BTW, personally I am more concerned about internal vermin spray (IVS) as described by D. King, being delivered by a variety of possible bad guys, than I am about Islamic extremism.

To simplify - fire was discovered pretty much all around our little globe at the same time - how did that happen? I also don't think a bunch island guys sat around their entire lives chipping away at giant statues, I've never seen an islander anywhere that energetic.

Singularity of man and machine is already here, there are many examples of this. We will have nano-bots inside of us to work on health issues and to repair and maintain us.

Technology is "advancing" at an every increasing, exponential rate and this will drive humans, machines and technology to merge even faster and faster. It will pick up speed exponentially. The line between man and “machine” will blur.

A Black Hole is a Singularity... we can’t see over the event horizon. The same is true of the Singularity of the joining of man, machine and technology… we can’t see over this event horizon either.

"Singularity of man and machine is already here ..." SteveE, you have a unique definition of Singularity. The rest of us anticipate it in the next 10 to 30 years, and when it comes, it will be an event in our past of which we learn belatedly.

George, I saw a recent interview with Ray Kurzweil. He talked about how the singularity of man and machine is already here and he provided some examples. In his interview Kurzwell provided the definition example of singularity that I posted on.

Kurzwell also discussed how we will be directly intergrating our "IPhones" with our body and brain. That we will back up our brain/machine memory just like we back up our computers today.

Kurzwel also discuss the "we can’t see over this event horizon" issue. He said it will speed up and it will become a blur, that the line between will be lost.

George,
On second thought, while both statements are technically descriptive, I think the one I cited has a little more emphasis for me because of the use of positive and negative infinity couple with positive and negative zero in the same statement or phrase. It's kind of like what you might call a double entendre. If you know what I mean?

SteveE - I have not heard of "the singularity of man and machine" and don't really know what it means. The Singularity has a fairly strong definition which I have presented several times in these pages.

The Singularity is an event that does not describe the augmentation of man by machine (also known as MAM in the literature). All the things you describe in how humans will embody machines are much discussed and will undoubtedly come to pass, but they are not to be confused with the Singularity event. MAM will occur and trans-humans may be 'built' without the Singularity ever happening.

When a yet TBD machine announces to us its presence as an accomplished fact, and presents the bona fides of its peerage (or, most likely, beyond peerage), then we will know that Singularity has occurred and we are living in a post-Singularity world. We can be certain at that time that all hell will break loose around the world until the new order stabilizes.